Editor's note: In the May issue of the REVIEW, I described a wargaming map exercise placed in the Seven Years War... an advancing Prussian force against a defending Austrian one. Phil Neuschler read the article and noted down his thoughts on the factors that were included in the game... together with those factors that were not, but should have been, included. His comments on these elements are interesting to me, because of the role these elements play in transforming a simple table-top exercise into one truly reflective of the era concerned. Single Blind While a double blind scenario can make wargames more interesting, it has to be carefully constructed. Wally Simon's account "A SEVEN YEARS WAR MAP EXERCISE", a minicampaign in the May '93 PW REVIEW, shows how important careful rulemaking is. Wally found himself in a "single blind" - where one player already knew decisive information. In a double blind situation, neither player knows the whereabouts strength, or intentions of the other player. Intelligence can be even more limited by requiring reconnaissance to establish terrain, modifying troop fighting capability (morale and effective numbers) as well as by introducing probability driven weather, logistic, and even political factors. Surprise meeting engangements of major army units or decisive reversals of potentials are quite likely, and this provides interest during all phases of the game. This limited intelligence situation closely approximates field experiences of major commanders before c1916. After this time, airplanes and later satelites combined with radio to make true double blind situations increasingly unusual. In the game described, critical information was given to one player. The Austrian player knew that Schweidenitz was the only Prussian goal. Therefore, the Austrian winning strategy was determined: sacrifice mobility and improve defenses no matter what the Prussian player did. Faced with this situation, Frederick's strategy could have been to mask the fortress, trap the Austrians, and threaten Bohemia and the core Auatrain provinces. The Austrian would then be forced to break out of Schweidenitz to regain mobility or to attempt to relieve the fortress with an additional army. These two costly alternatives make a "Sitzkrieg" (sitting war) strategy much less appealing. Napoleon successfully played just this sort of game with the Austrians about half a century later in North Western Italy. The rules Wally faced prevented such a success. Several points of history also plague the game described. Onlookers hooted at Wally's division of Prussian forces into Corps. In fact, armies of time normally divided themselves into battle lines composed of all arms: "treffen" in German. They marched and fought in that order. Brentano, of Daun's command, commanded a mobile "Korps" of infantry, artillery, and cavalry in July 1762. Wally's division of troops was reasonably accurate. As long as Prussian forces marched and camped in proximity, they were correctly deployed and within command control. The requirement for command control proximity was not observed evenly, though. Austrian cavalry was allowed to range behind the main Prussian army without infantry or logistic support. It could not do so. Croat irregular cavalry was sometimes supported by units of Austrian dragoons, but the mass of Austrian cavalry was cuirassiers and never operated away from its main army. Allowing the Austrian player to do this had serious implications for the game. He was allowed to increase the mobility of his cavalry by immobilizing his main army - something quite impossible until almost a century later. Finally, the rules overstated field fortification capabilities and did not allow the Prussians to use their heavy artillery. In 1761, faced with combined Austrian and Russian armies, Frederick built a fortified camp near Bunzelwitz which, when combined with some adroit maneuvers, kept his enemies at bay. Construction of this intermittant series of earthworks took about two weeks - considerably longer than the "few days" which thwarted Wally's Prussians. Austrians seemed to be a bit less able to quickly construct fieldworks. Their fortifications at Burkersdorf - about 6 km away from Schweidenitz, were unable to halt the Prussians on 21 July 1762. Further, the game should have allowed Prussian artillery to get into play. Certainly the Prussian 24 pounder batteries actually at Burkersdorf contributed to that Prussian victory. In the historical 1762 campaign, the Austrian commander was faced with a true double blind situation. The real threat was not to Schweidenitz, but to Prague and points south. Any threat of incursion into this area could have decisively changed the outcome of the war. Daun chose to sacrifice Schweidenitz and keep his mobility in the field. Schweidenitz with about 9,000 troops surrendered without a siege after Daun's defeat at Burkersdorf. However, Daun had prevented any threat to the Austrian core, and attained his limited aims. Reality did not allow him to peg Prussian actions as did the "single blind" situation of the scenario. With all this said, the Scimitar Wargaming Club is to be commended. Players had a good time - that was the real goal. Simply viewing beautifully painted figures in wargames table maneuvering is quite enjoyable. Further, the game umpire added limited intelligence even though it's hard to throw together a true double blind situation. If gamers want to create enduring campaign scenarios, however, they would do well to use well thought out double blind rules, and not let themselves be caught in the "single blind" trap. Back to PW Review June 1993 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com